


three petals

by prosecutorpumpkin



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Kingdom Hearts Fic Exhange 2019, M/M, Pining, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Pre-Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, They've Got Hangups, no spoilers though, to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 01:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosecutorpumpkin/pseuds/prosecutorpumpkin
Summary: A quiet man, a torn man, and the years they share between them.





	three petals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [triceraclops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triceraclops/gifts).



> For the KH Fic Exchange 2019 for Ink! Hope you enjoy.

_ I. _

_ a broken heart _

 

[ _ Bitter are the fruits, _

_ that grow from a corpse. _

_ Sweet, and yet. _ ]

 

The intricate filigree ring is cold and dead, a contrast to the roughly hewn, but intensely warm side table it is placed upon.

Dilan sits heavily on Aeleus's bed, back bent only slightly, arms and legs drawn close together in a stiff pose that tries its best to hide the cracks in his presentation. Aeleus, in turn, looks with concern upon him from his desk chair, hands folded one over the other on his lap patiently.

Dim candlelight paints his modest barracks room in oranges and deep, rich browns, and in any other situation would be welcoming and cozy, but for the time being seemed almost oppressive with its thick, overbearing atmosphere. They sit in quiet contemplation, before Dilan speaks, voice low but heated.

"He gave it back."

_ That goes without saying _ , Aeleus thinks to himself. That heavy ring wouldn't be sitting aside him otherwise.

"I loved him."

_ Of course _ , Aeleus thinks. _ Or else you wouldn't have gotten that ring to begin with. _

"I was a fool."

"You were vulnerable," Aeleus objects, and Dilan tenses in response. The red haired guard face knits together, soft despite the hardness of his features, and he works his lips as if to practice what he says next.

"You were vulnerable...in love, that's a beautiful thing...stronger than anything else," he mutters.

Dilan looks up, directly at Aeleus for the first time since the seemingly endless hours he's spent nearly catatonic in his room. Purple eyes, steely, set...wavered. It was subtle, and Aeleus didn't quite understand the layers of intent, but he did understand that those eyes were beautiful. Vulnerable.

"What a fool I am," Dilan hisses out between clenched teeth, and Aeleus places a large, warm hand on his shoulder.

"Never again."

 

_ ii. _

_ an interrupted proposal _

He hopes "never again" was an exaggeration.

Aeleus feels his heart clench when he sees Dilan slowly regain his unflinching dignity, looks away when they make eye contact, fleeting but friendly only to each other. His mind, for once, is abuzz with endless thought: with endless anxiety and guilt. He's not entirely new to the sensation, he knows enough to call it what it is: love.

But was Dilan open to love anymore?

After the failed engagement, the guard had sworn off falling for another, and yet it seemed not to stick. They had become more comfortable visiting each other after that night, a back and forth between each others' rooms on weekends, doing very little more than sharing coffee or tea, Aeleus every now and then offering to show his poetry to the other. Dilan, for his part, seemed genuinely appreciative of the craft and engaged in ways that made Aeleus feel loved, admired, and even a bit flustered.

Aeleus wonders if those are dates. He wonders if he should ask, just to make sure.

He wonders if "never again" has an expiration date.

He picks up his pen, and begins to ask in the only way he knows how.

 

_ intermission _

_ wordless _

 

His pen skitters to a halt across pressed white. The paper is too smooth, too slick. Treated and crafted by inhuman entities, it feels as superficial and hollow as the existence he has been relegated to. Lexaeus, as he is now called, looks to the man who he once held in high virtue as his muse, and feels, ever so slightly.

Dilan...Xaldin...is on guard again. Emotionally, this time. Sitting across from each other in the Gray Area, they avoid each others' eyes, though Lexaeus can see them flash in his direction when the other thinks he is not looking.

Old habits not only die hard in this state, but are all they have to go off of now. He can see, in his eyes, narrowed and purple and very good at hiding their pain, that Dilan...Xaldin...simply cannot grow anymore.

[ _ Flower, earthly moon. _

_ Petals white, bleached further _

_ past their point of breaking _

_ by a jealous, cold _

_ god _ ]

Poetry comes back to him in pity...sympathy. Neither.

And then it disappears.

"How very strong you look, Lexaeus. Even when you're merely sitting," Xaldin says, eyes cast now to the starless night outside. "Proof that such strength has been at your core since the beginning. Quite admirable, that."

Lexaeus tries not to dwell too long on the unspoken implication, tries too hard to ignore the admission of weakness in that praise. Perhaps no one else would have heard it that way.

Perhaps that's why Xaldin told him.

Words fade from him again.

 

_ iii. _

_ revival _

 

[ _ Desert earth; barren field _

_ Harsh. Empty. Free. _ ]

He wakes with a start.

The air is painful, entering his lungs, and it feels as if it is the first time he has breathed in centuries. No matter how long he waits for the sensation to become comfortable again, it resists being tamed.

Lex...Aeleus had returned to the world of the properly living months ago, yet every second felt unnerving, unreal. His flesh screamed with agony upon registering the slightest drop of "pain" again, eyes pricked with tears when his heart remembered that it could feel. Every sensation, every emotion, bombarded him in ways that made him want to return to the earth, to be welcomed by an endless silence where nature itself could decide what to do with him.

But that was his penance, wasn't it.

He drags himself through the motions that were once familiar and comforting, he returns to his scheduled route around the castle that was once home and now felt like a den of sin and dread. He sees Ienzo, acknowledges him with a brief nod...before he knows it, he's the boy's shoulder to cry on, the other overwhelmed with sudden grief and guilt. It's normal. It passes. Aeleus squeezes his shoulder before continuing onward, leaving the sniffling youth in peace.

When he sees Dilan at last, it as though the sun has appeared in front of him, unprepared. He averts his gaze quickly, stock still, while Dilan stands in front of him, blocked by his mass. Dilan's face is as stern as ever, purple eyes captivating, a single lock of hair falling in front of his face daring to make him look anything short of perfection itself.

The Dilan of old, and yet....

"Good morning," he offers, voice still just a notch flat under the Dilan Aeleus used to know, tempered by the Xaldin he had been until so recently. "I heard the tears."

He looks away, and sighs, and Aeleus's heart jolts at its sincerity.

"Restoration cannot wait, and yet...It all feels...feels, hah," Dilan snorts to himself, and Aeleus can't help but offer a chuckle in return.

"Feels too soon...right?" Aeleus picks up.

His hand slides to Dilan's shoulder, and then down, where it brushes against Dilan's fingertips. The other stiffens slightly, breath catching...before melting into the grasp, twining his fingers back weakly.

"It will always be a little too soon, won't it." Dilan looks up, tired, thin smile on his face, and Aeleus swears he's found the words for a hundred new poems. "Alas...the only way through is forward. We must try again."

"Of course."

Dilan lets go, and Aeleus steps back, beginning his stroll back down the hallway.

"I'd like to try again. With you."

The words are almost swallowed by the hallway, and Aeleus isn't even sure he hasn't made them up. Yet when he looks over his shoulder, he sees Dilan, and in those eyes sees vulnerability, and he knows.

"Come by my room any time. I missed sharing poems with you. I missed...you."

"And I, you."


End file.
